The Thickety by J. A. White

Kara saw her mother killed for being a witch when she was just six years old.  Ever since then, she and her sickly little brother have been treated horribly by the village they live near.  Her father played a role in accusing her mother of witchcraft, and now he cannot function well at all, spending his days writing the same thing over and over again in a notebook.  So Kara at age 12 takes care of her brother and tries to keep their small farm functioning and her family fed.  The entire village lives in fear of the Thickety, a deep woods nearby.  So when a strange crow leads Kara deep into the woods right to the heart of the Thickety, she almost doesn’t follow.  There she discovers a book of spells that seems to promise great power, a book that will mark Kara as a witch in everyone’s eyes.  What is a witch’s daughter to do?

White creates a book that is just as dark and tangled as the Thickety itself.  Her writing is a treat to read, focused on creating characters that are complicated in their motivations in a world that is lush and vivid.  She doesn’t shirk away from truly frightening scenes in the book, including the opening scene of the mother’s death and Kara being accused as a small child of witchcraft.  That scene alone warns you of the horrors to come, horrors that are scary in a deep, dark way but ones that are also appropriate for the middle grade readers.

Kara is a strong heroine.  She is an outsider from a young age, shunned by her peers, beloved by her younger brother.  Even the adults in the community have abandoned their family, leaving them to fend for themselves.  Speaking of the community, it is another strength in this novel, a tight-knit and fanatical community on an isolated island that shuns magic.  White manages to stay away from any sort of Salem-type setting while still maintaining clear links to that puritanical rage. 

Well written with a strong protagonist and impressive world building, this dark fantasy is ideal for middle grade readers.  Appropriate for ages 11-13.

Reviewed from library copy.